Is There Anything Good About Autism? Why might autism be part of human evolution?
This may be one of the most important questions we can ask about autism.
Autism is a variation of nature but most would agree that it is also disability that leads to profound challenges., especially in a world designed for the majority, which is neurotypical. This, however, is not the full story. There are good reasons why evolution does not produce only one kind of mind. Human survival has depended on diversity, including cognitive diversity. Nature does not put all its eggs in one basket. Variation allows a species to adapt when circumstances change.
Here are six possible advantages that come to mind.
1. Diversity increases adaptability.
A population composed of different kinds of minds may be better equipped to respond to unexpected environmental changes. Archaeologist Penny Spikins has proposed that the emergence of modern human behavior may have involved increasing cognitive variation and the social integration of “different minds,” including autistic forms of cognition (Spikins, 2009).
2. Different ways of thinking can produce unusual solutions.
Professor Dr. Temple Grandin, autistic herself, describes visual thinking in terms of pictures, patterns, and abstractions, and argues in her book that these ways of thinking can contribute to innovations, problem-solving, and more (Grandin & Lerner, 2022). Thinking in pictures or patterns may increase awareness of relationships or solutions that others overlook.
This may also help explain why an autistic person can become extraordinarily skilled in a particular area of interest. What the DSM-5-TR describes as “highly restricted” interests can certainly become a socially isolating activity—but sustained attention can also lead to remarkable expertise.
3. Less social distraction can sometimes be an advantage.
When there is an urgent problem to solve, social maneuvering and small talk may simply get in the way. There are demands that require straight-forward attention, such as: Build the bridge. Repair the machine. Organize the information. Solve the abstract problem. Sometimes getting directly to the problem is what we need.
4. Directness can be valuable.
Honest communication can be refreshing—and useful, too. In an ambiguous situation, someone who says exactly what is on their mind can bring information into the open that everyone else is unconsciously avoiding. For example, years of psychotherapy may not be necessary when a direct question shines light onto the darkness. Some relationships might be saved when indirect or passive-aggressive communication is avoided.
5. Sensitivity can detect what others miss.
Heightened sensitivity to sound, movement, texture, or subtle changes are often exhausting the autistic person. However, the same sensitivity can also function as an early-warning system. The proverbial canary in the coal mine is valuable precisely because it detects something before everyone else does.
6. The human capacity for abstraction may have helped create both anxiety and art.
As the human brain became increasingly capable of imagining distant futures, it also became capable of anticipating loss, potential danger, and inescapable death. Perhaps this is one reason human beings created mythology, music, art, and other symbolic worlds.
And here the evolutionary story becomes especially fascinating. Nicholas Humphrey explored similarities between European cave art and drawings made by an autistic child, Nadia, and proposed that such similarities raise questions about what cave art tells us about the evolution of the human mind (Humphrey, 1998). This does not establish that autistic people painted the caves; it is, however, an intriguing hypothesis about cognition and the origins of symbolic art.
We cannot know exactly what role autistic minds played in human evolution. But perhaps we should ask different questions: What would be the cost of cloning minds and cognitive monoculture? What would we as a society lose if all had the same mind?
Autism reminds us that differences in people enrich a group and contribute to the world of humans.
References
Grandin, T., & Lerner, B. (2022). Visual thinking: The hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns, and abstractions. Riverhead Books.
Humphrey, N. (1998). Cave art, autism, and the evolution of the human mind. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 8(2), 165–191. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300001827
Spikins, P. (2009). Autism, the integrations of “difference” and the origins of modern human behaviour. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 19(2), 179–201. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774309000262